Transcript Review: World War II

Please make sure you have all of the following
vocabulary:
Sanction,
appeasement,
pacifism
Anschluss
Blitzkrieg
radar
sonar
Genocide,
collaborator
reparations
Island-hopping
kamikaze
Containment
satellite
PLEASE BE AWARE
 The Essay for the test will be a DBQ style essay.
 There will be no planning section required (you will
answer documents instead)
 The essay topic is as follows:
 Describe the arguments both for and against the use of
the Atomic bombs on Japan.
How Did Dictators Challenge World
Peace?
 Throughout the 1930s, dictators took aggressive action but
met only verbal protests and pleas for peace from the
democracies.
 Mussolini and Hitler viewed that desire for peace as
weakness and responded with new acts of aggression.
 In 1935, Mussolini invaded Ethiopia. The League of Nations
voted sanctions, or penalties, but had no power to enforce
the sanctions
 Hitler built up the German military in defiance of the
Versailles treaty. Then, in 1936, he sent troops into
the demilitarized Rhineland bordering France —
another treaty violation.
The Spanish Civil War
Although the Spanish Civil War was a local struggle, it
drew other European powers into the fighting.
 Hitler and Mussolini sent arms and forces to help
Franco.
 Volunteers from Germany, Italy, the Soviet Union, and
the western democracies joined the International
Brigade and fought alongside the Loyalists against
fascism.
 By 1939, Franco had triumphed. Once in power, he
created a fascist dictatorship like those of Hitler and
Mussolini.
German Aggression
 In 1938, Hitler used force to unite Austria and Germany in the
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Anschluss. The western democracies took no action.
Hitler annexed the Sudetenland, a region in western
Czechoslovakia.
At the Munich Conference, British and French leaders again
chose appeasement.
In 1939, Hitler claimed the rest of Czechoslovakia.
The democracies realized that appeasement had failed. They
promised to protect Poland, most likely Hitler’s next target.
Hitler formed a Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact with Stalin.
German forces invaded Poland.
Britain and France immediately declared war on Germany.
Aggression in Europe
Why the war came
 Historians see the war as an effort to revise the 1919
peace settlement. The Versailles treaty had
divided the world into two camps.
 The western democracies might have been able to
stop Hitler. Unwilling to risk war, however, they
adopted a policy of appeasement, giving in to the
demands of an aggressor in hope of keeping the
peace.
Early Axis Gains
By 1941, the Axis powers or their allies controlled
most of Western Europe.
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Germany and Russia conquered and divided Poland.
Stalin’s armies pushed into Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
Soviet forces seized Finland.
Hitler conquered Norway and Denmark.
Hitler took the Netherlands and Belgium.
France surrendered to Hitler.
Axis armies pushed into North Africa and the Balkans.
Axis armies defeated Greece and Yugoslavia.
Bulgaria and Hungary joined the Axis alliance.
The Battle of Britain
 In 1940, Hitler ordered Operation Sea Lion, the
invasion of Britain.
 The Germans first bombed military targets, then
changed tactics to the blitz, or bombing, of London
and other cities.
 London did not break under the blitz. The bombing
only strengthened British resolve to turn back the
enemy.
 Operation Sea Lion was a failure
Operation Barbarossa
In 1941, Hitler embarked on Operation Barbarossa,
the conquest of the Soviet Union.
The Nazis smashed deep into Russia, but were
stalled before they could take Moscow and
Leningrad.
Thousands of German soldiers froze to death in
Russia’s winter.
Russians also suffered appalling hardships.
Stalin urged Britain to open a second front in
Western Europe.
American Involvement
 When the war began in 1939, the United States declared its
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neutrality.
Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act, which allowed the President
to supply arms to those who were fighting for democracy.
Roosevelt and Churchill issued the Atlantic Charter, which called
for the “final destruction of the Nazi tyranny.”
Japan advanced into French Indochina and the Dutch East Indies.
To stop Japanese aggression, the United States banned the sale of
war materials to Japan.
Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.
The United States declared war on Japan.
Germany and Italy, as Japan’s allies, declared war on the United
States
Occupied Lands
 While the Germans rampaged across Europe, the Japanese conquered
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an empire in Asia and the Pacific. Each set out to build a “new order”
in the occupied lands.
Hitler set up puppet governments in countries that were peopled by
“Aryans.”
Eastern Europeans were considered an inferior “race,” and were thus
shoved aside to provide “living space” for Germans.
To the Nazis, occupied lands were an economic resource to be looted
and plundered.
German leaders worked to accomplish the “final solution of the Jewish
problem” — the genocide, or deliberate murder, of all European Jews.
Japan’s self-proclaimed mission was to help Asians escape imperial
rule. In fact, its real goal was a Japanese empire in Asia.
The Japanese treated conquered people with great brutality.
Turning Points
 During 1942 and 1943, the Allies won several victories that would turn
the tide of battle and push back the Axis powers.
 El Alamein (late 1942): The British stopped Rommel’s advance and
drove the Axis forces back across Libya into Tunisia (in North
Africa).
 Stalingrad (late 1942): The Red Army took the offensive and
drove the Germans out of the Soviet Union entirely. Hitler’s
forces suffered irreplaceable losses of troops and equipment.
 Invasion of Italy (mid 1943): From North Africa, the Allies
invaded Italy. The invasion weakened Hitler by forcing him to
fight on another front.
 Invasion of France (mid 1944): The Allies opened a second front
in Europe with the invasion of Paris. They freed France and were
then able to focus on defeating Germany and Japan.
Strategies in the Pacific
 At first, the Japanese won an uninterrupted series of
victories.
 Soon, however, the tide of the Pacific war began to
turn.
 The United States began an “island-hopping”
campaign. The goal of the campaign was to recapture
some Japanese-held islands while bypassing others.
The captured islands served as steppingstones to the
next objective.
 In this way, American forces gradually moved north to
Japan itself.
Defeating Nazi Germany
 To win the assault on Germany, the Allies had to use
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devastating force.
As Allied armies advanced into Belgium in 1944, Germany
launched a massive counterattack.
Both sides suffered terrible losses at the Battle of the Bulge.
Hitler’s support in Germany was declining.
Germany faced round-the-clock bombing.
The Allies crossed the Rhine into western Germany.
Soviet troops closed in on Berlin.
Hitler committed suicide, and Germany surrendered.
The Atomic Bomb
 Dropping the atomic bomb brought a quick end to the
war. It also unleashed terrifying destruction.
 Why did President Truman use the bomb?
 Truman was convinced that Japan would not surrender
without an invasion that would result in enormous
losses of both American and Japanese lives.
 Truman also may have hoped that the bomb would
impress the Soviet Union with American power.
Aftermath of the War
 The appalling costs of the war began to emerge.
 The world learned the full extent of the horrors of
the Holocaust.
 War crimes trials were held in Germany, Italy, and
Japan.
 People faced disturbing questions: What made the
Nazi horrors possible? Why had ordinary people
collaborated with Hitler’s “final solution”?
 The Allies worked to strengthen democracy in
occupied Germany and Japan.
The Cold War
 As the United States and the Soviet Union became
superpowers, they also became tense rivals in an
increasingly divided world.
 The Cold War was a state of tension and hostility
among nations, without armed conflict between the
major rivals.
 At first, the focus of the Cold War was Eastern Europe,
where Stalin and the western powers had very different
goals
Casualties of WWII
Military
Dead
Military
Wounded
Civilian
Dead
389,000
211,000
7,500,000
292,000
475,000
400,000
14,102,000
671,000
65,000
108,000
15,000,000
**
2,850,000
77,500
1,576,000
7,250,000
120,000
500,000
5,000,000
100,000
300,000
Allies
Britain
France
Soviet Union
United States
Axis
Powers
Germany
Italy
Japan
** Very small number of civilian dead.
Source: Henri Michel, The Second World War
The United Nations
 World War II Allies set up an international
organization to ensure peace.
 Under the UN Charter, each of the member nations
had one vote in the General Assembly. A smaller body,
the Security Council, was given greater power. Its five
permanent members were the United States, the
Soviet Union (today Russia), Britain, France, and
China.
 The UN’s work would go far beyond peacekeeping.
The organization would take on many world problems.